Mayones 40th Anniversary Hydra Elite 6 Headless Guitar, Birdseye Maple, Walnut

Player's Perspective

This gorgeous limited-edition Mayones Hydra Elite 6 was built in celebration of their 4 decades of making some of the best instruments in the world. A beautifully figured 1-piece walnut top, 4A birdseye maple, and awesome-sounding Bare Knuckle Pickups make this a complete package that's effortless to both look at and play.

Making this Hydra unique is a 1-piece gorgeous figured walnut top. The fretboard is birdseye maple and roasted so it looks really great. The swamp ash body and the fretboard both have the T.E.W. treatment.  This is where mayones roasts, vibrates, and does a few other things to the wood to give it a more open and broken-in sound.

A slim and lightning fast maple neck feels great in your hand. The fretwork is immaculate, of course, and so you can really slam the action way down and it still plays so smoothly. It's definitely ready for the shred. The side dots and the fretboard inlays are luminlay, so they'll glow in the dark!

Bare Knuckle TKO pickups are designed specifically for Mayones and they are awesome! They're hot and heavy and definitely designed with the modern-day shredder in mind. The pairing of Mayones and Bare Knuckle Pickups seems to be a very obvious one. The result is a perfect marriage of tonewoods and electronics the likes of which we've rarely seen.

The neck is extremely comfortable, the pickups are hot and in-your-face, and the construction is absolutely flawless... And there's not a single other one quite like this. Easy on the eyes, ears, hands, back... you name it. It's just an awesome guitar.

Details

Bare Knuckle TKO Pickups

“Mayones and Bare Knuckle have a strong relationship going back many years so I was honoured when Dawid and his team asked me to design a custom humbucker set specifically for their guitars.

The brief was to create a bridge and neck humbucker set voiced to reflect the playing styles of Mayones players and for the optimum translation of tone from these amazing guitars.

Dawid sent over a Duvell and a Regius for me to use in R&D and over the course of several weeks the concept of the ‘TKO’ humbuckers was borne.

A lot of Mayones customers play progressive, technical styles of rock so I decided to use a combination of ceramic powered bridge humbucker and Alnico V powered neck humbucker. This produces an excellent combination of power and range of tone, producing 3 very distinct tones from bridge, bridge/neck and neck selections on the pickup selector.

Mayones guitars are extremely resonant due to the choice of premium timbers and construction methods and it was important that the pickups capitalised on this naturally rich, percussive tone.

The ‘TKO’ bridge has plenty of output, bass notes track very quickly, mid range is punchy and highs sound full with plenty of weight behind each note. Neck tones are clean and open with a woody snap and great balance of output with the bridge.

Mid position split coil tone is very tight and percussive with a very clear cut in the highs.

Overall the ‘TKO’ humbuckers offer a wide range of saturated rhythm and lead tones coupled with dynamic cleans perfect for modern rock guitar styles and they’re the ultimate partner for Mayones Guitars.” – Tim Mills (Bare Knuckle)